GUILLERMUS PARISIENSIS [with] AGRICOLA, Daniel

£5,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

Contemporary hand-coloured copies, in fine C16 Swiss binding, of these successful works addressed to priests, to improve their understanding of lessons from the Gospels, read at liturgy. These didactic manuals, intended to be bound together, are illustrated with superb full-page or smaller woodcuts by the Swiss artist Urs Graf, added to decorate and facilitate memorisation, even more striking, as here, in fresh period colouring. The first work is William of Auvergne s (or Guillelmus Parisiensis, c.1180-1249) major commentary ( postilla ), first published in Lyon in 1471. Appointed bishop of Paris in 1228, he was a Scholastic theologian and the first medieval philosopher who sought to reconcile Christian doctrines with Aristotelianism. Addressed to less experienced clerics and preachers in their early stages , Postille presents on each page a small excerpt ( lesson ) from the Epistles or Gospels to be read on Sundays or weekdays of specific parts of the liturgical year, surrounded by a commentary based on authorities like Nicolaus de Lyra, Rabanus and the Glossa Ordinaria. More than one hundred editions of the Postilla were printed during the C15. Surely this esteemed compilation must be regarded as one of the earliest best sellers [...]. This compilation of the Postilla was written down in 1437 expressly for members of the clergy and for those desirous of understanding the excerpts from the Epistles and the Evangelists, more commonly called lessons, which are read at appropri

• Binding: Hardcover

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